This Is The Cheapest Town In New Hampshire To Buy A House, Study Says

NORTHUMBERLAND, NH — Could you live in Groveton, a village in the North Country of New Hampshire?

Would your answer change if moving to Groveton meant you could shave tens of thousands of dollars off the price of a home?

The personal finance website GOBankingRates used data from the Zillow Home Value Index and U.S. Census Bureau population data to find the places in all 50 states where houses are a steal.

According to Zillow, the average single-family home in the United States is valued at about $367,711. Compare that to $159,727 in Groveton.

There are currently eight active listings in Northumberland, Zillow said, ranging in cost from $135,000 for a three-bedroom on a tiny lot to $345,000 for a two-bedroom, also on a small lot.

The houses may be cheap, but what’s it like living in a community of 871?

According to Wikipedia, the village was once a bustling papermill town until the leading company, Wausau Paper, shut down in 2008. There were plans to turn the community into biomass and liquid natural gas hubs, but these never materialized. In the 1960s, more than 2,000 people lived in the village.

The village's most famous resident? Punk rock felon GG Allin, who died of an overdose in 1993 in New York City.

The smallest place on the list is Brian Head, Utah. Originally known as Monument Peak, a town of 49 with a history rooted in exploration and logging. Also with populations under 100 are a pair of former mining towns often described as “living ghost towns”: Austin, Nevada, population 47, and Johannesburg, California, population 77.

Other specks on the map with populations under 500 include Bly, Oregon (population 123); Davidson, Oklahoma (159); Medicine Lake, Montana (190); Kitzmiller, Maryland (192); Lyon Mountain, New York (240); Drake North Dakota (245); Mystic, Iowa (257); Roxobel, North Carolina (347); Whiteface, Texas (390); Bowie, Arizona (399); Elmore, Minnesota (442); Pierce, Idaho (465); and Lind, Washington (491).

Editor's note: This post was scripted by another Patch staffer, not New Hampshire's editor, for publication on New Hampshire sites. The New Hampshire editor added local information.